ars.
Abandoning the patient and systematic follow-up system, he pushed on
up the hill, sampling at random, and finding each sample richer. The
scant supply of water was nearly gone, the gold frenzy clutched at his
heart. By sighting, he roughly developed the lines showing the
probable limit of pay dirt, as marked by the monuments of his earlier
labor; he noted the intersection of those lines, and there began a
feverish panning with his remnant of water. He found gold in flakes,
in scales, in millet-seed grains--in grains like rice at last! He had
tracked down a pocket to make history with, to count time from. And
the last of his water was used.

Adam sat down, trembling to think his find had been unprotected by the
shadow of a claim for the last month; reflected then that it had lain
unclaimed for some thousands of years, and with the reflection pulled
himself together and managed a grin at his own folly.

He went back to his saddle. Tucked in the saddle pockets was a goodly
lunch, but he did not touch that. He untied his coat and took out two
printed location notices, several crumply sheets of blank paper and a
pencil. He filled in the blanks as the location notice of the Goblin
Gold Mine--original notice and copy. On the blank paper he wrote out
four more notices, two originals and two copies, for the Nine Bucks
Placer Claim and the Please Hush. For the Goblin Gold he wrote himself
as locator, Charles See and Howard Lull as witnesses; he reserved this
for the highest and richest claim. For the next below, Charles See was
locator, Forbes and Lull were witnesses; and the third was assigned to
Howard Lull, with See and Forbes to bear witness.

Adam paced off the three claims adjoining each other and built a
stone monument at each corner, with a larger monument for the
location-papers at the center of each claim; the central monument of
the Goblin Gold about where he had made the last panning. And then,
even as he started to slip the first location notice in its monument,
he lifted up his eyes and saw, across the tangled ridges, three men
riding up from the deeps of Apache Canyon.

The cool judgment that had brought him safe through a thousand dangers
was warped now by the fever and frenzy of gold lust; his canny
instinct against disaster failed him in his need. There must be no
shadow of irregularity on these claims, his hot brain reasoned; his
find was too rich for chance-taking in the matter of mythical
witnesses;